Friday, August 5, 2011

'Old Time Tennessee' Melon

This was definitely the year for trying new melons, at least here at The Home Garden. Yesterday I showed you the 'Tigger' melon we grew and tasted, today let's welcome 'Old Time Tennessee' to the blog! Where the 'Tigger' melon is small, compact, and tasty 'Old Time Tennessee' is large, football shaped (perfect for football season), and tasty. You will notice that both of these have one thing in common - tasty! 'Old Time Tennessee' is much more like the traditional musk melon (what most people call cantaloupe) in taste than little 'Tigger'.

'Old Time Tennessee' melon

The flesh is orange (also good for football time in Tennessee) and the rind is a soft brown color. Don't pick 'OTT' when green, it tastes like a cucumber (I accidentally did that, my eagerness got the best of me). The rind is thin and easy to cut through which can be dangerous if you are competing with critters (like rabbits) for your garden produce. Frequent monitoring of the garden will result in a bounty of fruit. While I have one 'Old Time Tennessee' melon in my custody there are at least four others soon to be ripe on the vine.

As far as pests go, I did have trouble this year with the squash vine borer on my squash plants but they have completely avoided my 'Old Time Tennessee' melons. You can't count that as an official study in vine borer resistance for these melons but you can at least take comfort that if there are other things available for the borers to get maybe they will attack them first and spare the melons! I also planted zinnias and nasturtium as companion plants which may have had a significant impact. (Don't forget to consider companion planting when planning your vegetable garden.)

I'm saving seed for these melons too so those who wanted 'Tigger' melons will find themselves with bonus melon seeds in the mail!

Dave is the author of Growing The Home Garden and runs a small nursery business growing vegetables and herbs for local customers in Spring Hill, TN. (Blue Shed Gardens or FB page). He has written for gardening publications, Troy-Bilt, and Lowe's and is available for garden consultations. Dave gardens organically, is a Real Estate agent, and when he isn't writing, collecting seeds, or propagating plants he's parenting his 4 children as a stay at home dad.

Squash borer, go somewhere else. We gardeners don't like you. That looks scrumptious. I would have to find room for them. Maybe use the new combo fence I purchased this Spring. That stuff will be here when the cows come home. lol

I don't have squash borers, but the bunnies sure like the OTT vines! I live in SoCal, and the vines seem very happy - the melons are Enormous. But I have to surround them with Chicken wire and train them up my chain link fence for survival.

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Growing The Home Garden began as a garden blog in 2007 as a way to share my garden experiences. While this blog continues to serve those purposes I hope my experiences also help you to develop your garden.

Our garden is in Spring Hill, Tennessee (zone 6b-7.) which is fortunate to have mild winters and a long growing season. If you have any questions feel free to email me or post in the comment sections of one the many posts you'll find here at The Home Garden.

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